Do or Die Reluctant Heroes

Everyone was wearing radio headsets for this phase of the job. Martell and Yashi would wear a security guardlike version beneath their burlap sacks. Even Phoebe wore one. Hers and Ian’s both looked like Bluetooths, and since she’d never used one before, it felt cumbersome and cyborgish attached to her ear.


According to Ian, Sheldon was already in place. He would be monitoring the entire meeting from the safety of the surveillance van. He’d have access to the feed from a collection of strategically placed security cameras, and if something went wrong, he’d be their eyes and ears.

Aaron, too, had already reported in from the warehouse. The 18-wheeler was in position. In fact, he and the others—Shel, Francie, and Yashi—had already moved half of the boxes into the trailer. Berto and Martell were sidelined from that task, due to not wanting to mess up their realistically bloody stage makeup.

At least Phoebe hoped it looked realistic.

She tried not to be nervous as she and Ian headed for Georg Vanderzee’s house.

“I may need some help,” she told Ian. “Some coaching, in how to hide my revulsion.”

He smiled briefly as he glanced at her. “I focus on the outcome,” he said. “Saving those kids. Getting Aaron’s record wiped clean. And if that doesn’t work, I think happy thoughts. You and me. I’ll replay this morning. That’ll make me smile.”

“I could imagine learning to love my alarm clock,” Phoebe agreed, even as she blushed a little, “if that always happened, immediately after it rang.”

“Alarm cock,” he said, glancing at her again. “Sorry, I had to say it. You know you were thinking it.”

“Sorry,” she said, laughing. “But I wasn’t. Because I’m not a fourteen-year-old boy disguised as a thirty-something anti-hero.”

“I think I might be on to something that could sell really well,” Ian said, full on ignoring her anti-hero comment.

“Yeah, if you’re what you’re selling,” Phoebe countered. “The alarm part kind of doesn’t work without the … you know.”

He glanced at her again. “Say it, say it, say it. I bet that you won’t say it,” he said beneath his breath, but of course, intentionally loud enough for her to hear.

“You’d win that bet, man-child,” Phoebe told him as she laughed.

“Will you promise that you’ll whisper it in my ear, if something happens,” Ian said, “and it looks like I might die?”

He realized, maybe because she’d stopped smiling, how completely unfunny she found his request. Joke. It was supposed to be a joke, but God.

“That’s not going to happen,” he said quickly. “Shit, I’m sorry.”

“Cock,” she said. “Okay? Now you can … die happy, or whatever.”

“Okay,” he said. “Whoa. Wait. I wasn’t ready for that. Totally unexpected. Would you mind very much saying it again?”

Phoebe laughed again, despite herself. “Yes,” she said. “I would mind.”

They were approaching a red light, but instead of stopping, Ian pulled into the parking lot of a convenience store. He jammed the car into park, grabbed her, and kissed her.

And when he was done, he held her face between his hands and looked into her eyes and told her, “Nothing bad is going to happen to me, and I’m going to make damn sure that nothing bad happens to you. We’re going to smile at this a*shole, we’re going to do this job, we’re going to save those kids, and then I’m going to kiss you, just like that, for about four hours. Okay?”

Phoebe nodded, looking into his eyes, unable to speak. But then she found her voice. “Ian, we really need to talk about—”

“Shhh.” He kissed her again. “One goatf*ck at a time, okay?”

She nodded.

“Tell me again,” Ian said, “what you’re going to say, when we get to the warehouse.”

Phoebe widened her eyes, and gasped in appropriate horror as she said, “Berto, my God! What happened? Were you shot?”

* * *

“I’m okay.” Berto’s response came through the radio headsets that Sheldon and all of the other team members were wearing.

As Shel watched on the surveillance van’s main monitor, Berto limped toward Phoebe. Ian, the Dutchman, and the Dutchman’s bald-headed, bulgy-eyed, little bodyguard were right behind her.

The limp was maybe a little much, but Francine had done such a first-rate job with Berto’s bandaged wound—it was leaking just a bit of “blood”—he could get away with the extra drama.

Deb was in the van, monitoring along with Shel.

Just moments ago, as Ian’s car had turned onto the road leading to the warehouse’s driveway, he’d announced to the team, “Here comes Eee and Phoebe. They’ve got Vanderzee with them in their car—he’s got one, repeat uno, guard with him. Everyone, final check in.”

“Deb, in the van. I’m here, too, gang. I didn’t think I’d make it back in time, but I did. FYI, the yacht’s perfect.”

“Aaron, out by the truck.” Shel’s husband waved to the camera that was out on the loading dock.

“Martell. I’m dead. So I’m not moving.”

“Yashi. Unconscious. Also not moving.”

“The camera on you guys is working fine,” Shel reported. “You look great.”

“Berto.” Shel’s half brother sounded and looked tense as he gazed up into camera seven.

“Annette, overhead.” Trust Francine to make the smartass Mouseketeers reference in a deadpan from her perch up in the catwalk.

“Ian and Phoebe, I know you’re close enough now to be listening in. Do not acknowledge this, but—all of you—know and believe that I am the Lord your God for this phase of the mission,” Sheldon reminded them. “If you hear my voice in your ear, you do it, you don’t ask. So here they come—Ian is parking, Phoebe’s getting out. Here comes Berto to greet them.…”

“Berto, my God! What happened? Were you shot?” Phoebe could’ve worked in film—she was that realistically shocked as she caught sight of Berto’s bandages.

And now, over Shel’s headset, Berto gave an account of the story: “I pulled up and there was a truck in the bay, and I walked in on a f*cking robbery. I started shooting, they shot back, and I got hit. One of my guards is dead, the other is unconscious—I find it f*cking hard to believe this wasn’t some kind of inside job, because who else knew this shit was stored here?”

“Your father knew.” That was Ian.

Phoebe: “Berto, you should sit down.”

Berto: “We need to move this stuff now—get it the f*ck out of Dodge.” They moved into range of the loading dock camera, and he looked at Vanderzee as if he’d just realized the other man was there. “Are you the new buyer?”

Ian answered for him. “He was.”

“Was? What the f*ck, Dunn?” Berto was doing great. Shel wouldn’t have thought he’d be much of an actor, but he was convincing in his own thuggish way.

Beside him in the van, Deb switched off her lip microphone and pointed to the part of the screen that showed the feed from the surveillance cam that was out on the main road. “Vehicle approaching. Looks like an SUV.”

It was still some distance away—lot of turnoffs between where it was and the street leading to this warehouse’s drive. Still, there wasn’t much traffic in this recession-hit part of town at this time of late afternoon, so it was certainly worth the mention. Shel covered his mic. “Let’s keep an eye on it.”

Deb nodded as the show at the warehouse rolled on, and Ian and Phoebe helped Aaron lug the rest of the boxes into the truck.


Ian was explaining to Berto what he’d obviously explained to Vanderzee in the car. “My friend Georg found us an interested buyer, but at a dismal three point six. Not that I didn’t appreciate it, since it was significantly better than the nothing we were looking at. Still, this morning when we spoke, I told him it was contingent not only on his testing the quality of the product, but also on our not finding another buyer between then and the time we hit Cuba. And while we were on the way over here, hallelujah, I got a call. Martell’s backup guy came through, and we’re going to get a full five mill.”

“Jesus, that’s great news,” Berto said.

Ian continued: “I told Georg that I’d give him a finder’s fee, out of respect for his time spent. He’s also coming along to see how the operation works—which is good, since you’re not going anywhere but to the doctor. You have a medic on staff?”

“Yeah, I’m gonna f*cking need more than stitches for this one,” Berto said, wincing.

Deb cut in, still off-mic. “Shel. They’re still coming.”

Sheldon looked up at the monitor. That SUV was big and black, with heavily darkened windows.…

Kind of like the SUVs that Davio and his men drove.

Shel found the video controls for the camera positioned right at the end of the road leading down to their turnoff. He zoomed in on the windshield of the approaching SUV, praying that it would just go past.

“Holy shit,” he said, as instead the vehicle made the turn.

It was Davio. It was Davio. How the hell could it be Davio, who was supposed to be in a meeting with Manny, up in Sarasota …?

There was no time to think, only to act, because Shel could not let Davio drive around to the loading dock, where Aaron was freaking standing next to the truck, like a giant target.

In a flash, he was out of the van, and running toward the car that Ian had arrived in—it was closer than Martell’s, and hopefully had more power under the hood.

“Deb is now God,” Shelly announced into his headset as he stopped at the edge of the building and drew his weapon from his holster. He was close enough to be able to dive for cover, but out far enough so that the men in that vehicle would be able to see him. He hoped. “We have an approaching SUV. Big enough to hold at least six men, and one of them is Davio.”

* * *

Ian heard Shel’s words, and his initial reaction was to kill Berto. Right then, right there, because he must’ve been behind this.

But Berto was looking at him, eyelids all the way up in genuine surprise, shaking his head as the first sound of gunfire echoed outside of the warehouse.

“What the hell, what the hell!” Aaron started shouting, his voice coming in both via headset and live, from just outside by the truck. “Sheldon, God damn it! What are you doing?”

Phoebe was already moving, taking Vanderzee firmly by the arm, and leading him toward the back, toward the office. “Our surveillance team just told us that we have an unannounced visitor,” she told the Dutchman. She was remarkably calm, waving for the bodyguard to follow them, too.

But the man didn’t do it, instead nodding at some unspoken command from his boss. He drew his own weapon, and was watching Ian, ready to back him up. If that hadn’t been Davio out there, Ian would’ve been glad for this proof that the Dutchman considered himself part of this “team.”

“Eyes, I need eyes,” Ian said into his headset, even as he pushed Berto after Phoebe and Vanderzee. “Go with her. Stay with them,” he ordered him. If he was going to war with Davio, no way did he want to be distracted by thoughts of Phoebe, alone with the Dutchman. But, f*ck, his weapon was filled with blanks, while Baldy, his new sidekick, was packing serious heat. He heard the sound of gunfire again as he ran toward the loading bay, Vanderzee’s man on his heels. “Deb! Shit! Where are you? What the f*ck is happening?”

“Ack, sorry, sir, my mic was off,” Deb’s voice came into his ear as even more shots were fired. She brought him up to speed with a staccato narrative. “Shel just fired at the SUV. They stopped, backed up—I think the driver was hit. Now they’re coming again—someone else is behind the wheel—but Shel’s got your car. He’s driving toward the SUV. I think he’s going to try to lead them away from here—to get them to chase him.”

“That’s exactly what I’m doing.” Sheldon, sounding stressed, his voice pitched high. “He’s gonna follow, too, because he hates me, but first I’ve got to make sure that he saw that it was me.”

“God damn it, Shel, don’t! You promised! You promised!” Aaron was running toward the side of the building, but Ian put on a burst of speed to catch up with him.

“Shots are being fired,” Deb narrated the obvious. “Sheldon is driving toward them. He’s got his window down.…”

Ian hit his brother like a linebacker and wrestled him down to the pavement, holding him back as what sounded like a small army opened up and emptied their magazines into metal. Vanderzee’s man peered around the corner of the building, looking quickly but then pulling his head back.

“Shit!” Ian heard Shelly say. “Oh, shit!” But then there was static and his voice cut out.

Tires were squealing and engines were revving, and Aaron was fighting him, and Ian could hear Phoebe, Francine, Martell, and Deb all talking at once.

Phoebe, telling Vanderzee: “It’s okay. It’s going to be okay. Ian will take care of it.”

Martell, sounding extremely spooked: “What the hell is happening …? I do not like this.”

Francine, to Martell, her voice low: “If you move, Martell, I will make you deader than you’re pretending to be.”

Deb’s voice was really the only one that mattered, as she alone had a visual of what was going on. “I think Shel’s okay. I lost radio contact, but his car’s still moving. He’s heading away from the warehouse and the SUV … yes, is following. Repeat, the SUV is following Sheldon’s car.”

“Call him,” Yashi’s voice came in, low and clear and calm from his place on the warehouse floor next to Martell. “Deb. Reestablish contact with Shel via cell phone.”

“I’m trying,” Deb said, strain in her voice. “I’m working now to get cell phone contact! But I wish you were in here! I need hands, now, to help me—Aaron, are you open?”

Ian had his arm pressed up against his brother’s throat, and he gave it a shove to make sure Aaron could hear him. “If I let you go, you go only to the surveillance van.”

The look on Aaron’s face was one of sheer pain—they both knew that even if Shelly wasn’t already badly wounded, it wouldn’t be long, with that much firepower after him, before Davio killed him. But he nodded, and Ian released him.

Aaron scrambled away as over their headsets, Francine said, in a voice that matched Yashi’s calm, “As soon you get phone contact, connect me to Shelly. I know the best route out of here. I’ll get him away from Davio.”

Phoebe spoke, again to Vanderzee, from where she and Berto had contained him in the back office: “We need to be ready to leave immediately when Ian gives the word. I know that one of our men took the car we arrived in, but that’s okay. I’ll go in the truck with Aaron. You, Hamori, and Ian can go with Berto, in his car.”


It was a good plan, but it wasn’t going to work. Aaron wasn’t going to be able to drive the truck if Shel was dead, or even just badly injured.

But what had Ian told Phoebe earlier? One disaster at a time.

And Hamori. That was the name of Vanderzee’s bald bodyguard. The guy was looking right at Ian, as if awaiting instructions.

Meanwhile, Deb’s voice was coming in through Ian’s headset. She spoke over Phoebe. “Francine. How well do you know this area?”

“Map in my head’s pretty complete,” Francie said.

“So if I can put out an APB,” Deb said, “get the police to go after the SUV and all of its passengers, Davio Dellarosa included, you could have Shel lead them to an intercept point that’s—”

“Do it!” Ian said it at the same time as Francine.

Maybe, just maybe, if the police in the area were on the ball, if they stopped the SUV, if Sheldon wasn’t already too badly injured …

Maybe Aaron’s world wasn’t about to end.

* * *

Shel was bleeding.

He didn’t know exactly where he’d been hit, he didn’t know how bad it was. It didn’t hurt, but he knew from past experience that it wouldn’t. Not at first. Not while his adrenaline was spiking. Of course, in Iraq, he’d been hit not by bullets, but by shrapnel from an IED.

There’d been a lot of blood that time, too. And now, as he’d done then, he tried his best to wipe his hands clean on his pants legs. Last thing he needed was a slippery steering wheel.

The back windshield shattered and he tried to make his head a smaller target, while the men in his father’s SUV continued to shoot at him as he gunned it much too fast down a pitted and pot-holed road.

Something was ringing, and ringing and ringing, and by the time he remembered that his headset included a cell phone, the ringing had stopped. He couldn’t spare the time or effort to look down to find and hit the button that would allow him to return the call, but he didn’t have to wait long before the caller—Deb—called back.

“Sorry,” he said, “I’m a little distracted.”

“Are you hit?” It was Aaron on the other end, trying his best to be crisp and professional, and failing—his anguish evident in every syllable.

“I love you, and I’m so sorry,” Shel said as his answer. He didn’t think he was badly hurt, at least not yet. But he’d just tried to kill his father, and that was not going to go unpunished. If he wasn’t already dead when they caught him, he’d immediately be executed. Davio would have no choice. And, God, Shelly wanted his sacrifice to be worth it. “Get out of there while you can. Do it, Aarie, now, for Rory’s sake!”

“Please, baby, just tell me if it’s bad,” Aaron said.

“Deb, cut Aaron’s mic, he’s not helping. Shel, it’s France. Where the f*ck are you?” his sister asked, with her usual charm.

“I think I’m on the main road,” he said as a bullet hit the headrest on the passenger side, “but I’m not sure. Aaron, God, I’m sorry. I swear, I didn’t plan this.”

“Focus,” Francine said. “Tell me the turns you’ve made, and I will get you out of there.”

“Right at the end of the driveway, then another right. I’ve been going straight ever since.”

“Have you gone over the railroad tracks?” she asked.

“No, I’m approaching that now. Shit!” His side mirror exploded.

“First right after the tracks,” she said. “Take it. If they manage to make the turn behind you, keep going straight, but if they miss it and you lose them—even just temporarily—take the first right after that. There’s a parking garage there, on the corner. Do not go in it—instead take your first left and then your first right. That’s going to send you back in our direction. Meanwhile, when they trace your route and try to catch up to you, they’re going to see that garage and think you’ve gone to ground there.”

All four tires left the ground as he went over the tracks, and when he landed, he was jarred and … Yeah. Now it hurt. “Tell Aaron—” he started, but his sister cut him off.

“Fo. Cus,” Francine said again, “and you can tell him yourself. Now, tell me when you turn.”

“I’m turning,” Shel said as he took the corner and fishtailed wildly—Jesus! The back of his car hit a parked truck, but he wrestled with the wheel and it didn’t stop him. It only slowed him a little.

“Are they behind you?”

“No!” But there, on his right, was the parking garage she’d described.

“Good. Turn right, go past the garage, don’t go in there,” she warned as if she knew how dark and inviting it looked—like the perfect place to hide when being chased by lunatic madmen. “Now take the next left,” she told him again, talking him through it. “Slow it down. Way down. Full stop before you take the next right. When you do, move at normal speeds. Deb, can you send the police directly to that parking garage? Davio’s gonna think Shel’s gone in there. They’re going to drive through it, search it. Let’s have the police waiting when that SUV comes out.”

“I’m already on it,” Deb said. “Police are on their way.” She repeated the vehicle description and plate number—obtained through the video—to whatever dispatcher she had on the other line.

“Shel, stay alert,” Ian’s voice popped in. “Don’t be careless, it’s not over yet. Eyes on the rearview.”

As Shel pulled up to the stop sign, he saw that a police car had just gone past. Emergency lights turning, it was moving fast and heading in the direction of the garage.

And Deb’s voice again came through. “I’m getting a report of police activity, an SUV with a shattered windshield and bullet holes stopped, on the corner of …” She kept talking but her words faded out as Aaron came back onto the conference call.

“Shel, are you—”

“I’m okay,” Shelly said as he started to shake. He must’ve gotten hit by a spray of breaking glass, because he had a piece embedded in his forearm, and the side of his face was cut—that was where most of the blood was coming from—but it was mostly superficial. He’d torn the crap out of his elbow as he’d skidded on the pavement, running to the car. But other than that …

“Go to ground,” Francine’s voice cut back in. “There’s a strip mall on your left that’s mostly boarded up. Pull behind it. We’ll come and get you.”

* * *

Martell continued to lie on the cold-ass warehouse floor even after Deb called, “Clear.”

He’d heard the truck pull away with its faux-illegal cargo. Ian, Phoebe, Dutchie, and Hamori left, too, in Martell’s car. It was kind of amazing, really, that as car after van after car got trashed, his stalwart POS remained up and running.

Martell pulled the canvas bag off of his head and sat up to find Yashi carefully detaching the FX blood pack from his chest.

“Guess Ian didn’t feel the need to kill me,” Yashi said with his usual blasé matter-of-factness before he headed outside. “What with everything else going down.”

“Let’s go,” Francine said, and Martell looked up to find her aiming her ire at him. “We need to move fast. We’ll change in the van. For all we know Davio’s already sicced a kill squad on us.”


Yeah, plus, Deb and the surveillance van needed to get into place at the dock before Ian and the semi arrived. They were purposely taking the Dutchman to the yacht via a longer and less direct route, but that didn’t mean the van could dally.

As Martell peeled off his fake-blood-soaked shirt, he followed Francine as she headed for the loading bay. “So that was pretty amazing. What you did. Saving Shelly’s life?”

She glanced at him. “I’m good with maps.”

“Yeah, like eidetic good.”

“I always plot six different escape routes, in the event of emergency,” she told him flatly as he followed her out into the late afternoon. “Which is what you’re supposed to do when you’re prepping for a situation in which people will be in danger. It’s really not that big a deal. I did my job.”

“Yeah, well, you’re really good at it is all I’m saying and … What the what?” Martell did everything but roll. He stopped and dropped open his mouth as he stared at the surveillance van, which had transformed from white to a pearly blue. It was the fastest, cleanest paint job he had ever seen, but then he realized that the white had been courtesy of a shrink-wrap, which had covered the shiny blue paint. Deb and Berto had merely peeled it off.

“We’re not sure if Vanderzee or Hamori got a look at the van,” Deb explained, stopping to wipe sweat from her brow as she used a wire brush to take some of the shiny newness off the thing. “But we have to assume one of them did.”

Bam!

Martell looked around the side to see that Berto, meanwhile, was applying dents with a crowbar. “Baldy certainly saw Shel,” he pointed out with a certain Eeyore-worthy mix of grim and glee.

“Yeah, we won’t be able to use Shelly as a member of Martell’s army,” Francine said. “But that’s okay. He can man the surveillance van.”

“I continue to love that I have an army,” Martell said. “Although I’ll love it a lot less if Davio drops in on us in Faux-Cuba, too.”

“He won’t,” Deb said. “He and his men are being held. But probably not for more than twenty-four hours.”

“Will Sheldon actually stay inside the van this time?” Berto asked Francine.

She got in his face. “He not only saved our asses, he saved the entire sting. So what the f*ck happened with the all-day meeting with Manny at the hospital?”

“I honestly don’t know,” Berto said.

“Where does Davio think you’ve been all this time?” she asked with her usual point-blank charm.

“He thinks I have a girlfriend here in Miami,” Berto said. “I spend a lot of time down here, away from him, and I use that as an excuse.”

Yashi came out of the van, holding a new license plate, and Martell saw that Deb had already taken off the old one. While Yashi held the thing in place, she used a power screwdriver to attach it. Damn, these people were organized and ready. This was like a master class in working undercover.

Except for the part where Davio had shown up.

“It’s not a quick and easy drive from Sarasota to Miami,” Martell pointed out. “Even if Davio flew, it’d be two or three hours, what with going through security. So it took some effort for him to get here. And then, to find out where you were? At that particular warehouse, at that particular time?”

“And I’ll say it again: I don’t know why he wasn’t at the meeting with Manny.” Berto didn’t back down.

“I do.”

They all turned to see Deb, looking unhappy. “Yashi did some digging, and he just told me that the news was just released. Manny Dellarosa died this morning from a massive heart attack.”

“No f*cking way,” Berto said. He was either the best actor in the world, or he was stunned. “I just saw him. He was fine.”

“These things can happen,” Yashi pointed out. “He may have hidden his real condition from you.”

“No,” Berto said grimly, shaking his head. “Davio f*cking killed him in a power grab. I don’t know how he did it, but he did. And that’s why he was coming here. To make sure he had my allegiance. And if not, he was probably going to kill me, too.”

“You might want to rally your troops while you can,” Francine advised him. “You’ve got twenty-four hours before he’ll be released.”

Berto nodded.

“We’ve got to move,” Deb reminded them. They were all going to pile into the van, leaving Berto behind since his part of this job was over. “Be careful,” she added.

Berto smiled in what looked like genuine amusement. “Words I’d never thought I’d hear from the FBI. Maybe those f*cking idiots on TV are right, and it’s end times.”

“Not a chance,” Francine said as Martell shook Berto’s hand, then followed her into the van.

Yashi drove while Deb changed her clothes, right there in the back of the van, and Martell did his best to try not to watch.